


Younger than the Sun

by likeadeuce



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-16
Updated: 2009-12-16
Packaged: 2017-10-04 12:02:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeadeuce/pseuds/likeadeuce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why was Wesley wearing so much cologne in "I've Got You Under My Skin"?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Under His Skin

Wesley stopped, poised with his hand on the glass door. The sign was flipped to "open," but the hand-printed card below it said, "OPEN 10 AM – 8 PM , WKDYS". The hands on Wesley's watch pointed to six minutes after eight. Everything in his well-mannered, finely-bred being told him to step back, that coming into a shop after hours was as bad as entering a neighbor's home uninvited. Besides, considering the day he had been through, Wesley imagined that he looked a fright and ought to be avoiding public places altogether.

But then, considering the day he had been through, Wesley knew he needed the fix that this establishment provided. He had not found another business in Los Angeles that could meet his needs for this particular product. He would just have to be on good behavior, hope for the best, and pray that no one working here would recognize him.

He breathed deeply, and pushed the door open, causing the bell to ring. The rich incense of mysterious blossom, leaves, and spices rose around him. He stepped toward the counter and addressed the woman kneeling among stacks of brightly colored tins marked with exotic lettering. "I am dreadfully sorry," Wesley said, "I would never venture to come in this late, on any other day, but I have been delayed by circumstances beyond my control and if I could only bother you for a moment – I seem to have exhausted my supply of that marvelous second flush Darjeeling tea – "

Her back still to him, the clerk straightened, and began, in an accent that closely matched Wesley's own, "Why, I know that voice. My little bit of Cambridge –"

He coughed. "Oxford actually."

"My little bit of Oxford right here in L.A." Then turning to see him, she stopped. "Bloody hell. What happened to you?"

He felt the blood rise to his face. "There was a fire. I – didn't expect you'd be working. I've only seen you on the day shift." Her name was Vishali -- it was printed on the receipts when she rang him up; he had checked. She had a small, light body, and dark eyes. She wore her black hair in a fashionable shag with red highlights, and the small gold stud in her nose matched the threads that ran through her silk blouse. In three months, there had been about five conversations, in which she had established herself as the only person he had met in California who knew the first thing about tea. He had come to work the day before, planning to sell an ancient weapon to Angel, and use part of the money to replenish his supply of the good stuff. He had also been impeccably groomed and – as Cordelia had observed – wearing too much cologne, which probably wasn't entirely a coincidence. Everything had gone out of his mind with Cordelia's vision, though and, more than forty-eight hours later, he wasn't in much position to make a good impression on anyone. Instead of cologne, he smelled like smoke from the Andersons'. "There was a fire," he repeated.

"Fire?" Vishali moved around the side of the counter. She pulled a chair and motioned for him to sit. He started to ease himself donwn, and she leaned close. "This doesn't look like a fire, it looks like you got attacked by a vampire!"

"What?" Wesley almost jerked to his feet again. "How did --?" Her hand rose to his neck, and he remembered the bandage Mrs. Anderson had applied, where the Ethros demon had forced Wesley's own cross into his neck. "Oh – that. Cut myself shaving."

"Right." She gave him a curious look, but he nodded to show he was all right, and she stepped back. "Let me get you some of that tea. If you're going to stagger in here at the end of a day like this,you deserve it." She moved behind the counter, and he had the dim idea she was going slowly, wanting him to watch her motion. Could she really be –? "So, Oxbridge man. You fight fires for a living?"

"No. . .That is, not every day." Wesley hesitated. He had hashed this out with Cordelia, what he ought to say when someone asked what his job was. Still, this was the first time putting it into practice. "I'm in – protective services."

She stopped with her hand on the shelf. "What like – the secret service? Or --" she raised an eyebrow, "Her majesty's secret service?" She bent down to retrieve another canister, and Wesley couldn't believe she actually needed to make such a point of lifting her ass like that. No question, she wanted him to look at her --

"Private," he gulped, "I'm a private security services –" What was that word Cordelia said went with anything, to make it sound it impressive and boring? Oh yes. "Consultant." Then he added. "I'm afraid it's actually very dull." _They won't have any trouble believing that_, Cordelia had assured him. _And then they'll just turn around and tell you about themselves, which is the only reason anybody ever asks what you do for a living, anyway._

"Dull. I bet." Vishali's hips swayed in the short skirt as she walked toward him. She didn't sound like she believed him at all, and she bent down as she offered him a tin of tea. Did she know how loose that blouse was, and that he could see -- ? " Margaret's Hope," she smiled. "It's our best Darjeeling. And –" She pulled another tin from behind her back. "In recognition of your valor – in not fighting fires -- a Show Mei white made with essence of licorice. No extra charge."

Wesley wasn't sure there would be enough moisture in his mouth to speak but he managed a, "Yes. Thank you." She smiled again, rocked back on her heels, and looked at him expectantly. There was no mistake, she was flirting with him. But it hardly seemed possible. He caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror on the opposite wall, and along with his mussed hair and the bandage on his neck, it was painfully clear he hadn't taken time to shave since the previous morning. He looked like hell and he smelled like smoke. "So," Wesley said. "Fancy a drink sometime?"

She smiled. "I thought you'd never ask."

There was no question about it, women were mad.


	2. Younger Than the Sun

Angel stopped, poised with his hand on the wooden door. His finely tuned vampire hearing detected something out of the ordinary; movement in the back of the office. Business hours were over, the lights were out. No one should be there. He eased the door open, slowly, quietly, wondering if the Ethros demon had survived their encounter, if it was back with friends. Or someone else, out to undermine Angel Investigations, maybe those weasely lawyers or –

_We were bo-orn before the wind. . ._

Someone was singing. The light was on, in the bathroom across the lobby, the water was running. . .

_Also younger – than the sun. . ._

. . .A man's voice was singing. With enthusiasm and inflection. Not especially well –

_Ere the bonnie boat was won – as we sai-ail into the mystic. . ._

For an insane moment Angel could only think of one person who would sneak on to his premises after hours to serenade himself with on out-of-key Irishman's song, and so he moved quickly, quietly across the lobby and turned the corner to see. . .

Wesley. Of course it was Wesley. He had his collar half open and pulled down, rubbing water against the fabric, trying to wash out the marks of his own blood as his voice rang. . .

_Hark, now hear the sailors cry. . ._

Wesley, alone in the office, with the light on, singing his heart out, absolutely asking for some creature of the night to burst in and rip his throat open. Angel felt an impulse to yell at him, teach him a lesson. And then –

\-- Then he didn't. Instead, he stood in the doorway and watched the mirror, where his own reflection would have loomed, if he'd had one. Instead, the glass only showed Wesley's face, unaccountably happy considering the day that they'd all had. Wesley especially, braving the exorcism ritual and its risks, despite how clearly out of his depth he was – _poor kid_, Angel found himself thinking, and the thought startled him, because it had never struck him how young Wesley had to be.

At first, Angel had been distracted by the formalities of the Watchers' Council, seeing Wesley through Buffy's eyes as a prospective authority figure. But the Watcher, in some ways, had been younger than his charge – new to his job, still figuring out his duties and testing the reach of his authority, still thinking in terms of rulebooks and controlled circumstances, while the slayer was already a veteran of more than one real-world apocalypse. Later, when Wesley showed up in that Rogue Demon Hunter getup, it only made things clearer -– perfect watcher or lone wolf badass, he slipped into the personalities as uneasily as a child making costumes out of his father's clothes. And, as with a child, any challenge to his right to wear them only made him play the game with more force. Angel tried to remember where he had encountered that particular mix of bravado and insecurity, and with a start he realized: Wesley really wasn't anything like Doyle but on some days, in some ways, he bore more than a passing resemblance to Spike.

Now _that_ was a terrifying thought, and one that he vowed never to voice out loud. There were some things you couldn't say to a former member of the watcher's council and, "You remind me an adolescent William the Bloody" was certainly one of them. Besides, Angel himself would never have sired William – that was Dru's insane decision. But Wesley – now, Angel thought, I might have seen something to work with in him . . .

And Angel pulled the brake and stopped that train of thought. Daydreaming about which of his colleagues he might have sired, back in the day, was not an acceptable diversion for an atoning vampire with a soul. Neither, he realized, was lurking in doorways and, for lack of a better term, spying on them – another vampire would have realized it was a compliment, but Wesley would probably just think it was creepy.

So when Wesley hit the first line of the chorus -- _I want to rock your gyyypsyyy so-oul. . ._

Angel said, "You sure about that?"

Wesley literally jumped, hitting his head against the mirror. "Holy Jesus fuck!" he cried, then whirled to face Angel. His face moved quickly from genuine fear, through a flash of annoyance, to obvious embarrassment – whether because Angel had managed to sneak up on him and caught him singing, or because Angel had surprised him into a rather undignified, and supremely un-English, display of profanity, he couldn't guess. "What did you do that for? Have you _been_ there a long time?"

"Just got here," Angel lied.

"Oh – Well." Wesley smoothed down his shirtfront and managed a more conversational tone, "Say, you don't happen to have a razor downstairs?"

Angel looked down at Wesley's collar. "Yeah. And if you're going out somewhere, I probably even have a shirt without blood on it you can borrow. Come on." He led Wesley toward the elevator and called over his shoulder. "Got a date?"

"No," Wesley said, too quickly. "I'm just – meeting a friend for a drink."

Raising the door on the creaky contraption, Angel nodded, keeping a neutral face – fortunately, not that different from his natural expression. But Wesley was about as capable of a neutral face as Angel was of walking through Macarthur Park at noon. His eyes showed that he knew he'd misstepped. A date was easy enough to believe, but Angel doubted Wesley had a friend in Los Angeles that he didn't know about. "Well," Wesley quickly amended, "A girl – woman – she works at the shop down the street and I asked her if she wanted to get a drink after her shift so – if that's how you define a _date_ I suppose."

"Oh," And now Wesley was so earnest and faux-casual at once that Angel couldn't exactly resist. Stepping out of the elevator, he turned to give Wesley an intense look. "You were just with her?"

Wesley nodded, following Angel into the room "She had to close up the shop, but she told me to come get her in half an hour. So – I didn't have time to go home you see and -- "

"That makes sense. I could tell you were just with someone who's –" He wrinkled his nose and sniffed. " -- really attracted to you. It does something to your pheromones."

"Really?" Wesley's mouth opened wide. "Angel, that's remarkable. You can tell all that just from the smell?"

"Yes," he said. "That's the smell of chemical attraction." He leaned close, sniffed again, then slapped Wesley's shoulder and stepped away. "Or tea. I get them confused."

"Well," Wesley said, sniffing his own shoulder, "I _was_ just in a tea shop. . ." Then his voice trailed off, he dropped his hand to pick up a pen from Angel's end table and threw it straight at his chest.

"Oww!" Angel laughed, swatting it away. "Not nice!"

"_I'm_ not nice?" Wesley crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. "You're a bastard. You should be glad it wasn't a wooden pencil and I didn't aim a little better."

"Yeah, Wesley, make my day." But Angel smiled as he spoke, then stepped to his dresser and came back with a dark red Oxford shirt. "Here." He handed it over. "Buffy's mother gave me this last Christmas."

"Angel!" Wesley exclaimed. "I couldn't possibly –"

Angel gestured at his chest. "It's a little tight through here. Plus, you know, it's sort of –"

Wesley raised an eyebrow. "Not black?"

"I think Joyce was trying to drop a hint." He shrugged. "It might fit you."

Wesley hesitated a moment, then started to undo his own dress shirt, showing a pale, slender, though not badly muscled body, with a soft feathering of hair on his chest -- _Don't focus on your colleague's chest, Angel_ \-- he'd made that rule about Cordelia, but it probably applied here as well. He held his hand out for Wesley's discarded garment. "Here, I'll get that washed."

Wes smiled, slipping into Angel's shirt, which did fit him well. "No snacking."

"What?" Angel stammered.

"The blood," Wesley looked down at the fabric, "Which wouldn't even show on this – not bad," he approved. "So – do you have a razor?" He raised his hand to his chin, which was starting to show the slightest trace of evening stubble, then frowned. "Do you _need_ a razor?"

"I _have_ one –" He didn't actually need to shave every day, since his beard didn't grow like a human's. He did occasionally use it on his sideburns but that wasn't really the issue. "Actually, Wesley, that's not a bad look on you –"

"You think so?" The color rose on Wesley's face, and he moved to look around for a mirror, then stopped himself. "I feel like something the cat dragged in," he mumbled.

"It's a good look," Angel reassured him. He watched an uneasy smile settle onto Wesley's face, which then relaxed into a real smile. It was a nice smile, and a nice moment, and Angel's natural reaction – of course, why woudn't it be? -- was to send Wesley out of the room. He fished in his pocket, and took out all the bills he had. "Listen, I know you're a little low on cash and you deserve to have a good time. I can give you an advance on the money we're going to bill the Andersons' so –" He handed the money to Wes. "Buy your girl a drink."

"Angel, you really shouldn't – " He looked at the three crumpled bills in his hand and said, "Ah, I see you mean _a_ drink. Perhaps a Pepsi-Cola?" Angel noticed that he pocketed the money in spite of his sarcasm.

"Yeah well – I don't usually carry cash," he apologized.

"Cordelia already advanced me, actually," Wesley admitted. "Leaving the finances to her _is_ part of the business plan – correct?"

"We're supposed to have a _plan_?" Angel asked.

This time, Wesley picked up on the irony, and smiled, then nodded at the door. "I really need to go pick up Vishali." He looked down at his collar again. "Thanks for the shirt."

"Keep it if you like it," said Angel.

"I'll see how tonight goes." He gave that bright, full smile again. "Then I'll make up my mind."

Wesley was walking into the elevator, when Angel called after him, "Have a good time. You did good work today."

Stopping in his tracks, Wesley turned and gave a sudden, serious look. "All right, now I know you're lying." He raised his hand to his throat. "I got stabbed in the neck with my own crucifix."

"I couldn't have done it without you here. You knew what to do," said Angel.

Wesley rolled his eyes. "I _always_ know what to do. Wait – that's not true. I very occasionally know what to do. And then I'm still bloody incapable of actually doing it without –"

"Help?" Wesley paused and Angel gave a tentative smile of his own. "I guess it's a good thing you have partners then."

"Yes," Wesley said after a long moment. "I suppose that it is." He cleared his throat. "Angel -- you did hear my entire conversation with Ethros? Correct? Even when you were in the other room?"

"Most of it," he said, then admitted. "Pretty much all. Vampire hearing."

"Well then -- you know that Ethros didn't know what he was talking about."

Angel blinked, wondering where that came from, then remembered the conversation he had overheard between Wesley and the demon. _Not good enough for the Council, not good enough for Daddy. . .hours locked under the stairs._ Angel didn't know what that was about, and he didn't think it was his place to ask. On the other hand, he wasn't sure he believed in a good relationship between a son and a father. And he had seen letters, in Wesley's meticulous handwriting, bounced back to the office with "RETURN TO SENDER" scrawled on the envelopes. "Clearly. I mean – " Thinking back on other things the demon had said. "There's nothing wrong with your Latin."

"Thank you!" Wes said indignantly. "The idea that this demon could take minor incidents and anxieties -- collected from the surface of my psyche and –"

"He was trying to hurt you," Angel said gently. "You didn't let him."

"I got stabbed in the neck."

"Yeah, well the last guy died. I'd say you're doing pretty well." Wesley's eyes widened, and Angel suddenly realized what his words had sounded like. "The last guy who tried the exorcism," he said quickly. "I wasn't comparing you to -- I don't have you confused with --"

"It's all right, Angel," Wesley said. "I know Doyle was your friend. I'm just --"

"My friend," said Angel firmly. "So help me out and don't get dead."

"I'm doing my best," Wesley said quietly. He sighed. "And now I'm not in much of a mood for that drink, I'm afraid. Maybe I should just go home and --"

"No," Angel said. "Not an option. You deserve to have fun tonight, Wesley."

"Yes. Fun," said Wesley. "I've heard about that. Not from you, of course, but --"

"That's right," said Angel. "Have fun but -- don't get _too_ happy."

"No?"

"Yeah. It's not a good thing for guys like us."

"Guys like –" Wesley swallowed. "Us? You and me? We're – like --?"

"Us," Angel answered. "Us dark, brooding, mysterious, dangerous and silent types. Who fight demons and save children from fires --"

"And don't always remember to shave. And show up with unexplained neck wounds? You really think women _like_ that sort of thing?"

"I could give you a couple centuries of evidence."

"That's all right." Wesley shook his head. "I'm sure you could and I _still_ wouldn't understand."

"Fortunately," Angel answered, "Nobody says you have to."

"And so we sail," Wesley said, with a final smile, "into the mystic."

And the door closed behind him, leaving Angel in the dark.


End file.
